Unlike most advanced nations, the United States continues to condone capital punishment, with 60 percent of the populace supporting it. That percentage has gone down in recent years, as has the number of executions; several states have announced moratoriums. Not surprisingly, Texans support the death penalty more strongly than the nation as a whole, with 74 percent in favor.

So, while killing a person who has committed certain crimes remains legal, cruel and unusual punishment is not, no matter how heinous the person being executed happens to be. What happened in Oklahoma on Wednesday night is clearly cruel and unusual punishment.

Oklahoma tried to kill a condemned man by using a new, three-drug lethal injection, but prison officials botched the job. The inmate, 38-year-old Clayton Lockett, a convicted murderer, died of a heart attack about 40 minutes after the first drug of the previously untried cocktail was administered. According to a Tulsa World reporter who was an eyewitness, Lockett began "writhing and bucking" on the gurney and apparently experienced intense pain. A second execution scheduled for later that night was stayed so that state officials could perform an autopsy on Lockett.

What happened in Oklahoma easily could happen in Texas, one of 31 states that use lethal injection out of the 32 that still have the death penalty. In Texas, as in Oklahoma and several other states, corrections officials are refusing to divulge where the drugs are coming from.

The Texas Department of Corrections insists that the state's method of execution is reliable and isn't planning any changes in light of what happened in Oklahoma. That's not good enough.

Until corrections officials are more forthcoming about what's being used to kill inmates - in our name - then a moratorium ought to be in effect. Attorney General Greg Abbott should be calling for one, but since that's highly unlikely, we would expect the courts to intervene.

States in recent months have been having difficulty getting the lethal injection drugs, in part because of liability concerns, in part because European producers have stopped providing the drugs to the states that administer capital punishment. Texas and other states hunting for new suppliers have come to rely on compounding pharmacies, which are lightly regulated by the government. States also have resorted to secrecy about how much they have stockpiled and how well they work and in some cases have tried to prevent the courts from finding out.

Now Playing:

Texas corrections officials and most elected representatives assure us that all is well, even as they refuse to reveal the source of the latest compounding drugs. Trust us, they say.

Many Texans are proud of their healthy skepticism - if not downright hostility - toward government. Texans should be just as skeptical toward those with the power to administer the ultimate penalty. The state that executes more prisoners, by far, than any other has an obligation to be as transparent as possible about our method of killing.